WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Joe Biden will travel to Poland on Friday to meet with President Andrzej Duda for discussions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the White House said Sunday.
“The President will discuss how the United States, alongside our Allies and partners, is responding to the humanitarian and human rights crisis that Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked war on Ukraine has created,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
The statement added that Biden’s trip will come after a visit to Belgium to meet with leaders from NATO, the G7 and the European Union.
“The trip will be focused on continuing to rally the world in support of the Ukrainian people and against President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” Psaki said of Biden’s trip to Europe.
“But there are no plans to travel into Ukraine,” she added.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, along with the Czech and Slovenian prime ministers, traveled to Kyiv to visit the besieged capital last week after Russia invaded its ex-Soviet neighbor last month.
US Vice President Kamala Harris also met with Duda in Warsaw earlier this month, with both condemning Russia’s military action, especially against civilians.
That meeting came shortly after the United States rejected a Polish offer to send MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine via a US air base — an offer which caught US officials off guard — saying the proposal raised “serious concerns” for the entire NATO alliance.
The United Nations has estimated around 10 million Ukrainians have fled their homes, with roughly one-third of them going abroad, mostly to Poland.
© Agence France-Presse
